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Dessert

Sweet Potato Souffle

A baked sweet potato souffle with lemon, sugar, butter, eggs, and a jam or apple puree topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 314 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Combine sweet potatoes, lemon juice, sugar, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Whip together with a fork until creamy.

  3. Stir in egg yolks until well mixed.

  4. Butter a soufflé dish.

  5. Pour the mixture into the dish.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove from oven and spread a layer of jam or apple puree on top.

  3. Whip egg whites with castor sugar until stiff peaks form.

  4. Spread the whipped egg whites over the jam layer.

  5. Return to oven until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sweet potato + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Boiled sweet potatoes
Provides the bulk and moist, starchy body of the soufflé.
Eggs
Whipped whites trap air and set the soufflé into a light, risen structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the base and stabilises the whipped egg whites.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Jam or apple puree
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the base and the topping.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Under-whipped whites collapse and give a dense result, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry. Stiff, glossy peaks hold air that lifts the soufflé in the oven.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, sugar, egg, lemon, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, sugar, egg, lemon, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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